22nd July – Wednesday
Back to Atherton this morning – we are starting to know the road by now – to collect the car. All that was wrong with it was a bit of gunk (technical term, there) on a sensor. The big question asked of us was, “Did you have it serviced by a Mitsubishi dealer because lower quality oil can cause the problem?” Yes, it has only every been serviced by Mitsubishi! Once I can find an address for Mitsubishi Customer Service, a letter will definitely be sent requesting some assistance towards the cost of a hire car. The nice people even washed some of the dirt off of sides of the car, although there is still plenty more to keep Les occupied.
As we were on the Tablelands, we decided to restock the coffee supply from our friendly coffee lady at Mareeba. Maria remembered me from my regular orders and was very chatty and friendly, even gave us a cup of coffee each. I have to say the place was much cleaner than last year – most of the cats seem to have disappeared! There were still plenty of chooks and chickens, though. Maria kept disappearing to talk to the chickens and feed them. It is coffee harvesting season and the colour sorter was working flat out (we had a long discussion about the merits of colour sorters), as well as Mama and another bloke doing the final picking/sorting by hand. Poppa was out on the harvester and a couple of other blokes were turning the drying coffee beans. Maloberti’s dry their beans by sun – they are spread out on long, wide sheets of plastic and the men walk through them, turning the beans with their feet (adds to the flavour). We were the only customers their and Maria talked non-stop for nearly an hour and a half! She also gets the super saleswoman award for the day – I asked for three by 1 kg bags of coffee and Maria asked if I would like 1.5 kg in a bag, as the bags were big enough. Of course, good idea. Thought I would get two bags, but no, was given three bags containing 1.5 kg each!
Back to Mareeba for lunch and discovered a wonderful bakery, with gigantic vanilla slices costing $2.50 – one was big enough for three people, but we made do! Also bought the most delicious mango and banana bar cake – scrumptious!!!
We stopped at the Mareeba Heritage and Information Centre, mainly for a comfort stop, and really enjoyed the heritage display (no charge). Cat became enchanted with the telephone switchboard (complete with plugs and wires) and was quickly trying to make connections.
Back to Cairns for the remainder of the day. It is still hot, getting hotter as the day goes on, in fact.
Back to Atherton this morning – we are starting to know the road by now – to collect the car. All that was wrong with it was a bit of gunk (technical term, there) on a sensor. The big question asked of us was, “Did you have it serviced by a Mitsubishi dealer because lower quality oil can cause the problem?” Yes, it has only every been serviced by Mitsubishi! Once I can find an address for Mitsubishi Customer Service, a letter will definitely be sent requesting some assistance towards the cost of a hire car. The nice people even washed some of the dirt off of sides of the car, although there is still plenty more to keep Les occupied.
As we were on the Tablelands, we decided to restock the coffee supply from our friendly coffee lady at Mareeba. Maria remembered me from my regular orders and was very chatty and friendly, even gave us a cup of coffee each. I have to say the place was much cleaner than last year – most of the cats seem to have disappeared! There were still plenty of chooks and chickens, though. Maria kept disappearing to talk to the chickens and feed them. It is coffee harvesting season and the colour sorter was working flat out (we had a long discussion about the merits of colour sorters), as well as Mama and another bloke doing the final picking/sorting by hand. Poppa was out on the harvester and a couple of other blokes were turning the drying coffee beans. Maloberti’s dry their beans by sun – they are spread out on long, wide sheets of plastic and the men walk through them, turning the beans with their feet (adds to the flavour). We were the only customers their and Maria talked non-stop for nearly an hour and a half! She also gets the super saleswoman award for the day – I asked for three by 1 kg bags of coffee and Maria asked if I would like 1.5 kg in a bag, as the bags were big enough. Of course, good idea. Thought I would get two bags, but no, was given three bags containing 1.5 kg each!
Back to Mareeba for lunch and discovered a wonderful bakery, with gigantic vanilla slices costing $2.50 – one was big enough for three people, but we made do! Also bought the most delicious mango and banana bar cake – scrumptious!!!
We stopped at the Mareeba Heritage and Information Centre, mainly for a comfort stop, and really enjoyed the heritage display (no charge). Cat became enchanted with the telephone switchboard (complete with plugs and wires) and was quickly trying to make connections.
Back to Cairns for the remainder of the day. It is still hot, getting hotter as the day goes on, in fact.
2 comments:
Yay for getting the car! And at least it was something as simple as oil gunk!
Great to hear you've got the car back. Jack had your apricot chicken for dinner, loved it. Shan
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